Well as of today, we are confirmed for departure to Uganda on Monday night, December 31st. Three days away!!
I feel relieved, anxious, excited, sad, frantic, at peace, hopeful, fearful, and altogether both more ready than I’ve ever been and also more aware that I will never, EVER be ready for this crosscontinental life change.
Pray for us all to have peace that passes understanding, time and organization for all the final details of goodbyes, shopping, packing, appointments.
This hasn’t gotten much less scary than it was the last time around.

We’ve been in NC for the last week. David’s Dad and Mother are here and we have enjoyed Christmas with them. From cutting down our own tree at a tree farm (Quinn thought the one we picked was too “wimpy” - “by which I mean, small.”), to baking cookies for Santa and opening the wonderfully full stockings (my favorite part) and hearing an amazing opera singer at a tiny church during the Christmas Eve service; it’s been a fun week. More family arrives tomorrow and we’ll see them all then head home tomorrow night.

Naomi has loved the chance in America for phone calls to friends (she and Rebecca talk many times a day!) and coordinating girl time with friends. She planned and hosted a lovely Christmas party with five girls this past week. It’s fun to see Naomi’s creativity, generosity and and personality come out - she’s even learning to use Apples Numbers program for event planning!
Pictured here: Megan, Leah, Sofia, Rebecca and Naomi

Long ago (perhaps five years?) I collected roosters, but these days I can’t imagine why. I chose instead, a few years back, to collect memories, like shining jewels on the silver strand of my life. Each picture-sound-smell memory glistening with meaning, with abundant life. NYC was a bead on my string. It was a big splurge for us to go, and I’m so glad we did. We went with Naomi’s best friend Rebecca and her mom Dana. Dana and I have been friends since we met in church nursery when our girls were 2 and our boys were barely more than newborns. God just keeps growing the friendship! Highlights:

1) Seeing the Statue of Liberty from the Statten Island Ferry at sunset and again on the return ride at night - I just kept saying “she’s so beautiful!” Naomi and Rebecca loved seeing her even though the educational video they watched on the way up to NY drove them to christen her the ” Statue of Boring”.
2) Getting separated from our tour bus and running down the streets of NYC in pursuit of bags (including car keys) still on the bus; we eventually caught up!! Wouldn’t be NYC without some running, getting lost, and misplaced belongings.

3) Riding the Subway and finding our way through the mazes of the underground using tunnels to change lines. An old blind and apparently homeless man sang beautiful Christmas carols to all of us passengers as we chugged through the darkness towards uptown.

4) Hot chesnuts off the street corner; held in the hand on a very cold night, devoured hungrily because they taste SO good, stuffed in a pocket as we met the warmth and fragrant incense candles of St. Patrick’s cathedral - amazing.

5) Laughing till we thought we’d fall at goofy pictures of ourselves taken against the Time Square backdrop of glitz and lights; it was late, we were tired, full and abundantly blessed by a weekend of memories and experiences.

6) Most wondrous of all for the girls was a visit to the three story American Girl store where they bought small things for their dolls and watched in delight as the dolls had their hair styled!!!
7) The Rockettes show was incredible.
Traveling on buses, trains, and ferries and eventually by car as we headed towards home arriving just before 2 am on our third day - hearing Dana’s stories of God presence in the lives of those around us in amazing ways. We’re so grateful for this chance and for these friends.

Naomi and best-buddy-Stateside, Rebecca, dream of NYC . . . . Today her mom, Dana, the girls, and I, venture into the city for two days of discovery and exploration. It should be a blast! It’s supposed to be quite cold and rainy but that’s not going to stop our fun.

A great joy in the last few weeks was a gift to Christ School funding the construction of a much-needed water tank . . . . Adequate water for drinking, bathing, and washing for 400 takes some serious piping and capacity! Today I looked up verses on water, such a symbolic topic; cleansing, renewal, and salvation are often characterized by it and I love the idea that this tank symbolizes all the ways that we seek cleansing, renewal and salvation for our students and staff. I especially loved a verse I found in Revelations 7:17:

“The Lamb on the Throne will shepherd them, will lead them to spring waters of Life. And God will wipe every last tear from their eyes.”

There is a saying that tears never run dry in Bundibugyo. It’s never been a hard proverb to believe and it’s even easier right now. As a missionary, much like as a parent, one wants to wipe the tears from the eyes of those we lay down our lives to love and serve. I wish for my children and the Babwisi people; for each student and staff member to have peaceful, healed and joyful lives.

Once in a prayer time, as I talked to God, I realized that I could visually “see” Jesus there with me as I re-experienced a difficult memory, but he was watching my painful experience from a distance. The friend who was praying with me countered this visual image with the truth that Jesus doesn’t apathetically watch our tears and our pain. He is right there with us, experiencing it with us, loving us through it. At that moment the vision of the true Jesus broke through. He was holding me, crying, and loving me . . . Even though my pain, the hurt, the tears were still there.

Tonight as our church celebrated the Christmas season with songs, prayers and congregational affirmations, I was amazed by the Lamb on the Throne who entered our world to better experience our suffering. Who chose to walk out many days with us here on earth. He did not wipe away every tear but he witnessed many, and He cried many Himself. He came as a baby, grew as a child, and was killed as a criminal - He has lived our sadness.

And just like Him we are called to enter lives and worlds not our own, to embrace the suffering and sadness we find there, to love through our own tears and others’. Though we want so badly to wipe away every tear, He teaches us that that is HIS completed Kingdom work. Instead we, like the man Jesus, witness tears, catch them in a bottle and join our own with the tears of those we love.

Jennifer writes on her blog that the Babwisi people are going on with their lives; children dancing, women cooking, men socializing around their homes as day turns to evening in the Ebola-zone. I can believe that. The Babwisi are choosing to keep on living. I wrote last time that sometimes this waiting life seems more like an existence, but I’ve realized more deeply over the last few days that we too have chosen to do more than exist, we have chosen to live; deeply, fully, well.

Today we headed back into DC where Naomi learned to ice skate and Quinn and I explored the sculpture gardens. Cities are such energetic, vital places. I felt renewed with life by the atmosphere.

I try to imagine Christ School reopening next year, female staff members like Betty, Theopista and Rosalind coming back to join almost 400 students living, learning, growing within the CSB gates. I’m afraid that some won’t come back, afraid, that school won’t be able to reopen, afraid of the long-term consequences of this tragic disease on a place that has struggled so hard to come as far as it has. To me, even more destructive than the disease itself, than the death and disruption and fear it has already caused could be it’s effect on the long-term growth of the district and people. A people already ostracized becoming more so. A people already steeped in witchcraft, immersing themselves deeper into futile attempts to control their destiny and lessen their misery.

Yet I see God’s supernatural power at work, as I look at the circumstances and imagine how very much worse they could be. When we got the call that Jonah had died, life seemed to be ending. Our greatest fears just beginning to come true. We could not imagine how many more friends might die, children might be orphaned, a place as we know cease to exist. Today, we still haven’t seen anything close to the end of this saga. Yet I see it as remarkable and not coincidental that this ebola-epidemic, having received so much prayer, has a fatality rate of only about 25% as compared to 90% in all other epidemics. Scott and Jennifer and Scott Will are thus far safe and healthy. Our team was evacuated well and reinforcements in the form of Dan and Ginny have hit the ground. Jonah’s wife and mother and children all remain healthy to this point - all of these seem miraculous to me.
So keep praying and living life to the fullest. Immersing as deeply and well as possible into the relationships and situations that God has given all of us to pursue, right here, right now. And realizing that this window into suffering, destruction and death that has been opened through Ebola was given to you because you and I are intended to effect a true difference through prayer.

And the cuties involved . . . . .

Life goes on . . . . And since we know so little about what is actually happening on the ground where our team is I’ll write here not about Ebola but about what we’re doing in the meantime, and the uncertainty.
Yesterday we made beautiful gingerbread houses with Shari and her daughter Kacie, the friends we live with here in Annapolis. We went upstairs from our basement to a table full of candy decorations and batch after batch of whipped icing. It was a full afternoon of non-stop fun and very good for taking my mind off what I know and don’t know about “home.”
I worry about little silly stuff, like our dog and whether the Ugandan friend who is feeding her has the money for food. Meanwhile people are dying of an untreatable disease, so who really cares about a dog, yet she’s our dog and our responsibility and I worry occasionally that she will never be “normal” after these four plus months practically always alone behind a fence.
More difficult for me is not knowing when/if we will get home to Uganda. Certainly we are so grateful to be here, safe, comfortable. Yet since we left in late August expecting to be back in six weeks, it’s been a long time of uncertainty. I think I was looking forward once again to a “certain” date of return, December 31st. But of course just as for everyone else in this scenario, there is no certainty. We don’t know yet whether a return at that time will just add a burden of numbers to a team already living in evacuation, or whether our presence is necessary to shore up a small team and help reopen Christ School at whatever time that makes sense.
As I think is somewhat normal, I have thought endlessly about the circumstances of others in this crisis, yet I eventually have come back to ourselves. We are packing our trunks for Uganda this next week, finishing up shopping you would have thought would be done ages ago (new needs arise, children grow, etc) before heading off to NC for the holidays but who knows what may come. We may be spending another four weeks, six weeks or months here in the States. I hope not.
This life in our basement home, shifting our plans every three to four weeks feels right now more like an existence. We feel between worlds, like we have fallen between the cracks of both Uganda and America. Between the cracks is a safe place though, a place free of Ebola and running for one’s life. But also a lonely place, and not as restful and soul-satisfying as I hoped being here would feel.
I’m sure this is, once-again, a lack of trust. I don’t see the big picture so I worry, I fret I harass God suggesting what’s best for our family, our team, the people of Uganda. The picture is a bit out of focus right now for me. Blurred by my tears, perhaps. I know God is capable of refocusing me and my thoughts, calming my personal fears, solving the foreseen problems as well as the unforeseen. It remains to be seen whether I will relax into His arms or, like the tantruming child who fights so hard for what she believes she needs, I will continue to fight; anxiously, restlessly insisting that I know what is best and I need it NOW.

What a precious gift yesterday was as our “Stateside team” (others who, like us, are in the States, not Bundibugy for various reasons) joined us here in Annapolis in the wake of the chaos that is enveloping our district and team.
There were three of us families plus Luke and Scotticus (Amy, we missed you). And I was struck as I looked around the room, that none of us is in a place of stability. All of us, though grateful and blessed to be out of danger have significant uncertainty in our daily lives and futures. One family, heading soon to Sudan but with funding and a team to raise up before heading to that also uncertain place. Another with a third born child needing serious medical interventions, uncertain about whether they will be able to return to their home in Africa, us; also waiting for medical results and God’s direction for reopening of Christ School Bundibugyo, in time.
But what a blessing to share team jokes, stories and the culture of community together. Though here we are not each other’s lifelines like we are on-site in Africa, we are still good friends who have shared inexplicable life circumstances and there is that sense of just “getting it.”
This, for me at least, was a gift from God. I’m so thankful for Scotticus, able to come up and stay with Luke and bring Luke here to us. So thankful for Luke, playing in the snow with the team kids who idolize and love him. So thankful for sweet baby Chase, so beautiful and precious, and for Quinn’s chance to see Grant after his unexpected leave from Bundibugyo, something we’ve prayed for. The reunion of these team kids was sweet and there was much weeping on separation (okay, so Gaby hid in a closet and had to be carted out.) I’m thankful for Rick’s realness as he empathized with what we’re all feeling about how this can make sense in what God calls us to.
This is real life and despite it’s severity I am thankful to be living it. I can’t say I look to the future with anything more than uncertainty right now, and I will admit that I feel fearful about this life that God’s called us to and about what the choice to follow that call means for all of us. Yet where is there to be but here, living real life, following a real and personal God who in His very God-hood is enigmatic, unknowable, but worth trusting.